Category: FreeDumb®

Ballot blocks

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
Mail call.

We vote. But not by mail, not in the strictest definition.

Yes, we receive our ballots via the U.S. Postal Service, but only so we can fill them out at the kitchen table, where last-minute research is easier and the lines shorter.

And then we march them over to the local polling place, an easy milelong stroll along the Tramway bike path. We exchange pleasantries with the nice folks doing the People’s Business, thank them for their service, and feed our sealed ballots into the box.

Then we stroll back to El Rancho Pendejo, secure in the knowledge that we have performed one of the most basic — and most important — duties of a citizen. Tossing rascals out and planting a fresh crop.

But you may vote by mail, for one reason or another, and that’s why you might want to check the shed for pitchforks and torches. Because the federal government — executive, legislative and judicial — seems to think that if they keep putting more roadblocks in our path, a critical number of us might not bother to vote at all.

Who peed in the pool?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Pucker up, Jeanine. The Great Builder has a boo-boo that needs kissing, and since you put it there — you know where — you’ve got the duty. | AP photo by Jacquelyn Martin

Ho, ho. I needed a good laugh today and Jeanine Pinot Noir delivers:

In an extraordinary motion filed Friday evening, the U.S. attorney in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, said she was seeking to dismiss a felony charge against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist who was accused of pulling up a piece of the [Lincoln Memorial Reflecting] Pool’s lining two feet square.

In doing so, Ms. Pirro — a longtime ally of President Trump’s — directly contradicted the president’s repeated claim that the Reflecting Pool’s peeling liner was caused by people slashing its coating with knives. Instead, she said, “the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”

Earlier this month, Ms. Pirro herself had echoed the president’s claims, calling a news conference to announce Mr. Hearn’s indictment on July 2. She said that she had “tremendous evidence” that Mr. Hearn had committed a felony, and noted that he faced up to 10 years in prison.

Except, uh, not so much.

But on Friday, Ms. Pirro said that her prosecutors had been misled by the Interior Department, which had awarded a no-bid contract to a first-time government contractor to repair the iconic landmark.

Ms. Pirro said that the pool’s new blue coating had actually started to peel within two days of the project’s completion, and that the Interior Department kept that fact from prosecutors, telling them that “nearly all of the damage” was done by vandals.

Later, Ms. Pirro said, prosecutors visited the pool themselves and saw that could not be true. The lining was peeling in many places, some far from the edge where Mr. Hearn had stood. After that, she said, prosecutors had demanded more information from the Interior Department, which made clear that the pool’s problems had developed during the renovation itself.

Do tell. Polygraphs for everyone!

I guess Jeanine skipped the “Investigate Before Charging” seminar at Albany Law School. Bad case of brew flu, p’raps?

In any case, The Great Builder was not amused. Writing on “Truth” Social, he screeched:

“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”

Couldn’t agree more. Charge the senile old saboteur who peed in the pool!

And a word to the wise, fatso: Get yourself a real ambulance-chaser if you want this kind of shit to stick to someone other than you. This boozy bag of hot air couldn’t deliver a case of beer to a frat house if one of the brothers was driving. She’d probably drink it all before they got there.

Grasping at (red) straws

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
Say, is that a commie under the bed? Nope, just Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

OK, lemme see if I have this straight. …

A fascist “leadership” that has installed felons, eejits, bullies, tools, and fools in positions of authority, unleashed a small army of masked, murderous thugs on the population, opened and filled gulags, started a needless, ill-considered, economy-strangling war it can’t seem to conclude, raised the cost of everything save labor while hoovering up gazillions for itself, its enablers, underwriters, and collaborators, insulted and/or shaken down nearly every international partner it has, revived dormant diseases, and constructed a convoluted, comical, rub-and-tug cult of personality, is suddenly clutching its stolen pearls and squealing about the perils of … communism?

Gloriosky, tovarisch! The capitalists have reached the bottom of their red-white-and-blue bag of tricks!*

You never saw Karl Marx tweeting shit like, “From each according to his ability, to … me.” But then this is the same crowd that was screeching about “tyranny” because a half-Black centrist was in the White House, mostly not fucking it up.

As we know, FreeDumb® is the most expensive kind.

An early Eighties Halloween in Oregon
Fido Castro, Chairman Bao Wao Wao, Che Chihuahua … a red-arsed mutt by any other name, and so on.

We’ve never come within a gnat’s whisker of communism, not even when the Party was in its heyday. Neither has anyone else. That derned ol’ State just keeps refusing to wither away.

But we’ve gotten a pretty good look at actual tyranny. So, excuse the hell out of me for proclaiming myself a proud Groucho Marxist.

*Made in China.

Lindsey Graham dies, goes to Hell

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
A successful parasite, moving from one host to another.

Who would’ve imagined that Lindsey Graham would beat The Turtle to Hell?

Not me.

Of course, Mitch McConnell may already be down there waiting on him, with dibs on the top bunk at the Lake O’ Fire Lodge. The usually reliable sources remain as silent as the grave.

Above the sod we hear all of the usual chin music about Graham’s alleged statesmanship, independence, compromise, influence, bipartisanship, and so on.

But I think Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo gets it just about right when he writes that “there’s another feature of his personality and political career that is key to understanding the man. He always needed a daddy. Or let’s say a political leader. A top dog.”

“That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,” as HST would say. Say hello to the new boss, bitch. Bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay.